By Hailey Potter

In case you've been living under a lion's den since the last issue of the Paw Print, December 21st marked the end of the world. Okay, maybe the world didn't end after all, but HOL's End of the World activity DID end that day. Thank God! I mean, don't get me wrong, I loved hosting a challenge for all of HOL, and it was a great way to meet new people outside of Gryffindor. (Prof. Scarlet Leslie for instance? She's super amazing. I could gush about her for a while. XD)

It's no secret that End of the World definitely had some strong ties to Gryffindor. Written and developed by one of the greatest idea machines Gryffindor has ever had, Chadwick Cadet came up with the initial idea and shaped it into something wonderful. When it came time for the contest, it was run by two Gryffindors: our own Head of House Prof. Missa Matz and our own Prefect in Charge in Training Hailey Potter, along with Ravenclaw's Prof. Scarlet Leslie.

But the development of the activity is not actually why I'm writing this piece. I thought it would be quite nice to highlight our Gryffindor victimsparticipants and to use their data to decide how well lions would survive if the world ever did indeed end.

We had a few more Gryffindors than I even realized at first, and some did very well. In all, we had nine lions fight for survival: Adonnica Montain, Ember Starsong, Fumei Shirokuro, Kailey Jones, Kynthia Near, Laurie Lovegood, Nina Messersmith, Fumei Shirokuro, Tom Foster, and Wicket Wilcox. Gryffindors made up a little over a fourth of the total participants!

Ember was a 19 year old with a talent for swords. Wicket was an 11 year old, nicknamed Wicki, who lived in the city and loved Pokemon and history. Unfortunately, neither girl acted fast enough and both failed to survive task one against the crazy, apocalyptic weather.

Kailey was also an 11 year old child actress who survived the weather by swinging on vines. Kailey certainly entertained us, but didn't take immediate action and failed to survive against the meteors.

Kynthia was a small town girl of 20 who survived the weather by staying at home with her cats and dog. She also survived the meteorites by calling the mayor for her family to stay with him. Nina was a 26 year old living with her fiance and two dogs. She survived the weather by heading into town, and she survived again by heading down into a cellar to wait out the meteorites. Kynthia and Nina failed to fight back in time against the robots and therefore did not survive.

Laurie Lovegood was a foster kid who could fight. She survived the weather by gathering her things and leaving her foster home, she survived the meteorites by joining the government on a Plan B, and she survived the robots by pressing buttons on their backs and was smart enough to reprogram them. All this surviving left Laurie exhausted, which left our brave Laurie defenseless against the zombies.

Tom Foster was an intelligent 13 year old boy who had researched the 2012 apocalypse intensively. He survived the weather by gathering his family to make it to safety, he survived the meteorites by digging deep into a mountain, he survived the robots by pouring water on them, and he survived the zombies by creating a serum to keep himself and his family safe from harm. Tom unfortunately caught the contagion in the last task and could not respond quickly enough to survive.

Which leaves us with our two lions who made it through all five tasks... did they survive though? That's another story!

Adonnica pinned an 11 year old girl named Nica who seemed to be a bit mischievous and very mature for her age. Her family had trained for situations like this so it seemed very likely Nica would survive. She left her home alone during the bad weather, camped in a cave during the meteorite attack, ran away as fast as her legs would take her from the robots, helped scientists create a serum to protect people from zombies, and stayed in a shelter away from the contagion and aliens. It seems the aliens caught up to her though; Nica just barely missed survival by being defeated in the alien puzzle. So close...

So that leaves us with Fumei. Fumei created Petri, a 25 year old girl who escaped the weather by leaving with her gran, escaped meteorites by joining the government's plan of action, survived robots by destroying them all as an agent of the government, survived zombies by returning back home with her family and staying in the basement, and survived contagion and aliens. Her story captivated us as her gran became sick. We wanted her to survive.And survive she did! The only Gryffindor to survive was Fumei Shirokuro.

So. One survived out of nine in all. That makes a Gryffindor survival ratio of 1:9. There are currently 170 active Gryffindors, which means if the world REALLY ended, only 18 (and one who ALMOST survives but misses by .1...) of us would survive. Jeez, maybe we should rethink our survival plans...

So hug your friends a little tighter today, lions, and be thankful the world really didn't end!

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